Archaeology, Memory and Oral Tradition: An Introduction
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Archaeology, Memory and Oral Tradition: An Introduction Siân Jones & Lynette Russell
Published online: 26 April 2012 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012
Abstract This paper serves as an introduction to this special edition of the International Journal of Historical Archaeology on the theme of archaeology, memory and oral history. Recent approaches to oral history and memory destabilise existing grand narratives and confront some of the epistemological assumptions underpinning scientific archaeology. Here we discuss recent approaches to memory and explore their impact on historical archaeology, including the challenges that forms of oral and social memory present to a field traditionally defined by the relationship between material culture and text. We then review a number of themes addressed by the articles in this volume. Keywords Memory . Oral history . Belonging . Narrative . Place . Heritage
Introduction Archaeology has a lengthy tradition of using oral history and as a form of historical enquiry it has long contributed to the production of public memory. Yet, recent approaches to oral and social memory undermine existing master narratives and confront some of the epistemological assumptions underpinning scientific archaeology. The active selection and construction of memory in the present has been emphasised, along with memory’s capacity to disturb dominant ways of
S. Jones (*) Archaeology, SAHC, Mansfield Cooper Building, Rm 3.17, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, UK e-mail: [email protected] L. Russell Australian Research Council Professorial Fellow 2011-2016, Monash Indigenous Centre, School of Journalism, Australian and Indigenous Studies, Monash University, Clayton, VIC 3800, Australia L. Russell e-mail: [email protected]
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Int J Histor Archaeol (2012) 16:267–283
understanding the past. In archaeology these developments have been prominent in post-colonial contexts and Indigenous archaeology. Yet there are also parallel trends in Europe, where oral history and social memory are seen as a means to access vernacular culture and subaltern understandings of the past. It was against this intellectual background that we decided to organize a theme titled Memory, Archaeology, and Oral Traditions at the Sixth World Archaeological Congress in Dublin in July 2008. Under this theme, as in this volume, we included oral history in the traditional sense of oral narratives based on first-hand experience, along with broader forms of transgenerational oral tradition, folklore, and social memory. These different forms of oral memory are frequently the focus of distinct bodies of research and publication. Nevertheless, they intersect with one another in complex ways and all are socially and materially mediated to a greater or lesser degree. Their juxtaposition thus raises interesting and productive avenues of enquiry. We asked participants to consider the following questions, which we regard as important in the future development of archaeological research on memor
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